Flow monitoring is known for many different kinds of enclosures, ranging in scale from microscopic to titanic. Thus for example flow imaging is undertaken to determine obstructions in blood vessels of infants, to determine flow vs. shock characteristics in wind tunnels with installed fluid-interacting shapes (often as scale models) of aircraft wings, submarine hulls or battleships; to evaluate cavitation potential in pump stations and siphons of very large aqueducts; and to assure effective heat transfer in seawater cooling chambers of powerplants.
It is known in these applications to dye the fluid to enhance visualization of its behavior. Such a dye technique generally applies colorant continuously, or in a single color, or both.
These characteristics of the flow-monitoring technique unfortunately limit the capability to identify or to fully quantify flow-related properties that vary within the volume—such as for example eddies 12c (FIG. 1) or velocity fluctuation through the flow line, Bernoulli-effect artifacts, reentrant or spiraling paths 12b, or in some circumstances even major influences such as shock waves, or such simple phenomena as exit flows 15b, 15c that are not parallel to the major axis of the system.
Although these technologies are extremely useful and of very great societal value, nevertheless limitations in the art prevent the derived information from being as fully valuable as it could be. Thus important aspects of the technology used in the field of the invention remain amenable to useful refinement.